


Illusions

by SilverDagger



Category: Claymore
Genre: Community: fic_promptly, Ficlet, Gen, Introspection, Regret, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:30:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1837762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as she'd like to, Teresa can't quite force herself to leave the girl behind.</p><p>(Written for the prompt 'ideals' on the DW comm <a href="http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org">fic_promptly</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Illusions

Even in the forest, there's no true solitude, no matter how much Teresa might wish it. All around her, she can hear the trilling conversations of birds, the scamper of small creatures darting from her path as she approaches, and – too distant for human hearing but just loud enough for her to catch – the sound of rustling leaves and snapping branches never too far behind her.

She picks her trail with care, mindful not to move too fast or leave too little sign of her passing. It wouldn't do to let that girl get truly lost, out here in the wilderness where anything could find her. And it's not yet too far back to the last village for a child to make the journey alone, but it's becoming clear that if Teresa plans on waiting for her ragged little tag-along to grow weary of following her, it's not going to happen. It would be admirable, almost, if it weren't such trouble. She's been on the road all day, and the girl shows no signs of flagging. So Teresa keeps to a human pace, though she could have made her destination in half this time already, and she slows further still as the sky darkens and the shadows grow long on the ground before her.

After a time, the underbrush starts to grow denser and greener around her feet, and she pauses, crooks her head, drawn by the sound of water. It isn't long before she finds the source, running swift and clean between shallow banks. There's a thicket of wild berries growing by the brook's edge, and she takes a closer look as she bends to refill her waterskin, sees the brambles heavy with dark, ripe fruit, nothing she recognizes as poison. If she camps close by, the girl will have something to eat tonight.

 _She's bound to be in need of it by now,_ Teresa thinks, _and water too,_ and quick on the heels of that thought – _why do you care?_

It sounds a lot like Ilena's voice in the back of her head, serene and distantly critical, and just for a moment it shakes her, the thought of how much the both of them have changed.

Why does she care? Because some ignorant child decided to pin her hopes in the wrong place, mistaking duty for salvation? Or some shade of Teresa's own youth, no doubt, clinging to the scraps of fancies she'd once considered real. She breathes in slowly, seeking patience, marking her old foolishness for what it was. It doesn't take much to remember the way it had been: two gawky, ungainly girls with plain practice swords slung across their backs, sitting on a low stone fence and swinging their heels, counting the scattering of stars bright enough to come out before curfew.

“We'll be heroes,” Ilena had said that night, back when they were younger, less inured to the job. There are times when Teresa half suspects she still believes it, or at least still wishes she could, and it's hard to blame her. After all, Teresa spent long enough believing it herself.

 _Legends, maybe,_ she supposes, in the way that beasts become legend, given sufficient strength and sufficient time. Not heroes. Heroes are words on paper, tales told in front of the tavern fire by drunken louts who've never thought to fear the teeth of their own death closing on their throats. They don't mean much of anything, stacked up against flesh and blood and steel, cold silver and small-town desperation. They're pretty lies, and Teresa doesn't waste her time with lies. She tells the truth and she tells it smiling, and then she walks away without looking back.

 _But this little girl,_ Ilena's voice says, as insistent a delusion as she ever was in person. _This girl of yours, she's not words on paper, she's –_

Small, Teresa thinks. Weak. Stubborn and stupid. Better off with humans where she belongs.

_She's a child. And she's alone._

Teresa shakes her head, angry suddenly – at herself, or an old friend, or something shadowy and untouchable that sits in the back of her throat, unwilling to be spoken just yet. Herself, then. She's angry at herself. Beneath the lush forest and the water at her fingertips, there's the memory of dry air and desert and another stubborn, stupid girl who was half a monster and once wanted to be something better, and it seems like Teresa's been doing a lot of walking away lately. A lot of not looking back.

Something needs to be done about that brat.

If Teresa angles northward, she'll find the cliffs by midday tomorrow, and the river not far beyond them. She'll take the quick way down, and then the girl will realize that she can't follow any further, and finally understand that there's no salvation here for her and there never has been. Maybe she'll turn back, find something else to do with herself, some other way to be happy.

Maybe she'll die. It's not Teresa's business, either way.

And she wants to believe it – that it isn't her business, that it hardly matters, that she doesn't care. If she tried, she might even convince herself, even with Ilena's half-mocking laughter in the back of her mind to tell her different. But Teresa doesn't need anyone's memories or misguided platitudes to recognize falsehood when she thinks it, and she doesn't waste her time with lies.


End file.
